Headed to Greece

Headed to Greece

An update from Kathy LaTour
Tomorrow at 4 a.m. Assistant Director Becky Hewitt and I will meet our group for our 7:30 flight to Thessalonica, Greece. By around 3 we should be at Gerakina Beach hotel, where we will be staying for the next week, and to say the women in the class are looking forward to it is an understatement.

We have had mostly rain and cold weather in London for a month, and now we can expect sun and a high of 100. The change in the weather will be as big a shift as our focus. For the next week the students will be matched with Radiologists and advocates from breast care facilities in a number of developing countries. The students, under the direction of visiting senior lecturer Tony Kroll, will be interviewing individual doctors and the advocates with them about issues of breast cancer in their country of origin. For example, in a Muslim country the women are covered from head to foot because of the belief that only their husband should see their body. So how will they receive adequate preventative screening for breast cancer — and how do you overcome that issue?

For the past month the students have been using statistics and numbers to prove the need for issues such as gun control, women’s rights and climate control. Now they will learn how to gather those statistics from doctors and women on the front lines. Tony and I will be encouraging them to look at ways to leverage their work this summer into a fellowship or internship for next summer.